


A Creator's Responsibility

by Merfilly



Category: Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 03:57:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4376318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He lets her live on the wedding night, but is that a mercy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Creator's Responsibility

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sunchales](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunchales/gifts).



She screamed at the sight of the hideous visage peering in at her, scrambling back away from him.

His misshapen, scarred face twisted, with anger lighting the blackened eyes, and he raised his hands, approaching her… before stopping. "No. You seem to love him as you fear me. Live, then, live and let that love be tested. You will learn fear can come from beautiful packages." 

The hideous creature left, making good his escape long before Victor could come to the rescue of his bride. Elizabeth was left to her husband's fierce embrace, sobbing into his chest, unaware of the fact her beloved's eyes could only rove the darkened shadows, seeking the creature.

* * *

"Victor," Elizabeth called, but she knew it was in vain. Her husband of a year now, even when he was home, ignored her for pursuit of his science, for his obsession. He would not speak of the monster that had nearly attacked her that first night, yet it was all he thought of, raving about it in his sleep, escaping what was meant to be their home to pursue every rumor of it.

He had been her world as a child. She had known her entire life that he would be the one she wed. She had devoted her life to being witty and intelligent and coy enough to entertain him and his gentlemen friends.

With just that one word spoken, and Victor still perusing his notes, Elizabeth turned on her heel and left the room. She made certain their home was in full order, so that no one would want for anything, and took a small case of clothing with her to leave. She took only the money she had on hand, acquired over the course of the year as she sold baubles and trinkets of little value to her heart.

He was so obsessed with the monster he had made that he could not see the monster was the man that peered out of his mirror each day.

* * *

The room was stifling hot, a miasma of odors only increasing the milieu Elizabeth felt as she tried to decide what path would take her to either happiness or freedom. She could not even choose which of those she most wanted. Her entire life had been wrapped around one solid idea of her future, and now, happiness was ill-defined, while freedom could easily mean terror for her. She still remembered, dimly, the life she'd led before Victor's family had taken her in.

"I love him yet," she said aloud even as she scratched the words into her journal of this period. Not a single soul had come seeking her, and she doubted her husband had noted her absence.

"Do you love him, or... the icon of him within your memory?"

The words, spoken in a rasping voice that was nonetheless soft startled Elizabeth, and she could only gasp in fear as the horrid visage of her wedding night was there in the room with her, melting out of the further shadows of the corner. She thought of the danger, and then she recalled the creature had spared her once. His words rang in her mind, and she looked at him anew.

"I do not know," she answered, giving the creature her full honesty. 

The creature nodded once to her, not moving any closer, until she indicated the other chair in the room. 

"I … you frighten me, but I am more afraid of what Victor has done to himself, all of he has become. Please sit, as I find I must trust you, in order to know enough to make my choice," she told him, maintaining a firm command over her rabbit's heart and her features.

He did not have the fine control to indicate surprise in his features, but a new light reached his eyes, and she felt some fear subside. This poor creature had feelings. She'd seen his rage, and now she had noted surprise. What had Victor done? What was this being now sitting across from her that Victor was so obsessed by?

"He is a fool, to have that which he denied me, and yet ignoring it," the creature said after a long silence where each appraised to the other. "I hated you, as a piece of the happiness he refused me, yet have I been crueler than murder, sentencing you to endure his cold heart?"

Elizabeth bit at her lips, closing her eyes. If she had died that night, it would have been with the knowledge that Victor loved her more than any other emotion. Yet… she was not so much the coward that she would wish that. "No. I believed in a lie, and your mercy has merely set me upon an unsteady path of learning the future in truth," she told him bravely.

The creature was moved to reach toward her, yet he caught himself at the first twitch of her muscles to shrink back. Elizabeth realized what she had done, and found the courage to sit straighter, laying her fingers across the the table in such a way as to offer human contact. With utmost delicacy, the creature rested his own fingers upon hers, doing no more than making contact.

"Tell me, sir, what manner of man you are, and how this is all tied up in Victor's fortitude and animus becoming so fragile?" Elizabeth invited the creature, so that she could learn and understand better where the future might begin, for the past was an unsteady foundation in her personal knowledge of events that had shaped this moment.

"I am not without bias, peaceful one, but I shall endeavor to tell you the mad tale that I harbor. I never asked to be created, but once that task had been completed, I did feel there were obligations your husband failed to meet in having performed such a deed," the creature said with hurt and rage both shadowing his words, yet the fingers upon Elizabeth's never flexed, nor did he move to loom from his chair to frighten her. She had asked, and he would respect that, even as he marveled to find Victor's wife of more courage than he'd seen in some men as he wandered.

"I wish to know, so we may move forward, perhaps address a future in which Victor redresses his mistakes?" Elizabeth invited, and the creature began his long tale for her.

* * *

It had been many minutes since the creature ceased to speak, and Elizabeth was still struggling to digest all she had been told. The ethical qualms that arose in her were all squashed by the fact that the creature existed at all. Every step after that tore at her compassion, for what creator could so thoroughly turn its back on the created as to leave it alone and uneducated as to life around it?

"You have done horrible things, but what child does not, if they have no teaching from their parent?" Elizabeth told the creature. "You have been condemned to loneliness, for Victor created you to be a solitary triumph of his imagination and skill, denying you the companion you requested as your only price to leave and find your own way. I have no means for righting such wrongs on his behalf, but the very fact of your existence leads me to believe that I have never truly known who Victor was. And that means that yes, it is merely an icon of the man I thought I knew that I have loved all these years." She tipped her chin up, defiant, as the future gelled into something more credible for her, something that would allow her to practice the compassion of her soul and yet move beyond the fetters of her past.

"Yet I am still alone, even if my tale has inspired you to find your truth," the creature said with despair and fatigue both in his voice.

"How can you be alone, for I will need someone strong to keep me safe as I try to find my new role in this life? We both must learn, and there is safety in numbers, perhaps somewhere far from here," she entreated gently. He merely stared at her in confusion, leading her to expound. "I am leaving Victor, for he is not the man I thought him to be. Yet for the Victor that has only ever existed in my imagination, I feel a need to guide you, to fulfill the part of creator that he failed in, by being a teacher. And you, sir, will provide to me strength and care, for you do have a heart and a wish for the softer emotions of mankind."

"I am a monster, and will only ever be seen as such. My rage can be black as pitch. I sought to kill you once. How do you know I am not lying to you in all I say?" the creature demanded of her.

She looked at their fingers, still touching after the long talk, still gentle and non-threatening.

"Because I believe you wish to rise above what he see you as," she told him. "And I will help you with that, sir. Have you chosen a name for yourself, so that I may say it, and place a seal upon our new partnership?"

He dropped his eyes, his head even, as if shamed. "'Monster' is all I have ever heard, and it has branded itself upon my soul, if such a thing exists."

"That, sir, will not do at all," Elizabeth told him. "I shall borrow from the word of God, yet it is not mete for me to give you the name of the first man. Rather, I believe that Job, the man of much suffering, would be the one better suited to share his name with you."

"Job," the creature repeated, looking up at her, that new light in his eyes giving her hope for this delicate future she was crafting. "And you shall be Milady, for your heart is the truest nobility I have seen yet upon this earth we walk."

"If it is your wish, though in time, Job, I believe you will find the strength and wish to name me as Elizabeth from your own lips," she told him, strangely satisfied at this path before them.

"Perhaps."


End file.
